Leaderboard

Hi all! Challenges is something new I am trying to stimulate activity here and also to stimulate the composers' minds around here. You can now start your OWN topics in this forum. And, members can create Challenges, which are anything from mini-competitions to simple time-based things. To start a challenge, here are the steps: Make a thread titled: "Challenge: ______" insert a subject you want to call your challenge. In the thread itself, describe the challenge and if there will be a deadline to complete it. Post it. Examples of different types of challenges: Compose a piece based off of this melody/motif. Compose a fugue based on this subject. Write something for paper clip and soprano. Set this text to homophonic choir texture. Write a string piece using only natural harmonics. Write a baroque suite, learn the dances, and post a video of you dancing to your suites. Write a piece using ONLY this melodic idea. Write a piece using all chromatic tones in every voice. Take your favorite pop song and arrange it for classical singer and piano. Write a piece in under 60 minutes! See what happens. etc. The idea is to come up with little creative exercises for composers to think outside of the box. Yeah? They can be any length, any instrumentation, there are NO rules to this. if nobody wants to participate because you've made a challenge too difficult, that's YOUR problem and you should revamp your challenge to be more accessible. Ask questions below. :)

So the premisse is: composing a 10-bars piano miniature (the title is really self-explanatory). How can you develop a musical idea in few measures? Important observations: repetiton marks ARE NOT ALLOWED!!! Do not put Dal Segno, Rittornello or anything else that simply repeats. Each measure must be played only once. Also, you can easily "cheat" the rules by using a really big time signature, like 50/2, and a very slow tempo, and lots of semiquivers. It's not valid! I don't want to put the strict limits about which time signatures and tempi are allowed, but be honest to yourself, hehe. The deadline is October 10th (one week).

So, I've noticed a pattern: when we have extra awesome competitions, they are usually because there is a popular topic or the time is extended. Usually people cannot compose in one month. They drop out. But, the competitions have tried to maintain a certain minimalism about them. Short length. Small instrumentation, etc. I've come up with a solution for next year I want to run by you all for suggestions: CHANGES: A. Next year, there will be no more monthly competitions. But, rather, BI-monthly competitions lasting 50-60 days each. This will provide for more in depth works (orchestral even!) and extended works with chamber ensembles. B. To replace the more immediate ideas, I want to go back to something YC had a long time ago: Challenges. People would post small challenges for composers. Like, build a song off of this motif. Or, write a piece in 60 minutes. Games to expand the mind. This allows for people to collaborate and post their own Mini-competitions/challenges (and offer awards if they want!) and for a more "immediate" sense of composition. People that want shorter pieces and having to write "in a box" can use these to their advantage. Fugue writing competitions, song writing, RECORDING competitions to have a competition to see who can play a piece they wrote the best. Whatever you can think of. This will ALSO allow for the BIGGER works people have been requesting to take up two months and let more in depth writing and more worthwhile pieces to shine! What do you think?

In fact it's not that simple, but I have already figured out how to do (There IS a way to do it, and I almost did, by using 16th notes, with hidden pauses, beamed them across barline and changed the notehead shape, but many "glitches" started to appear, so I gave up and took off the bar lines, making a very big measure, so that I didn't need to crossbeam notes). Thanks anyway^^

I have more than a passing acquaintance with bach's BWV 910-7 yes The strand of compositional development to which i am referring relates directly to that set of toccatas. Almost all of the later compositions in a similar form (ie incorporating adagios, interludes, fugues, etc into a single movement form) are called fantasias or sonatas, or later on, tone poems. The term "toccata" did not acquire a specific meaning until the later 18th century, and when it did it came to refer to pieces like e.g. Schumann's Op. 7, rather than Bach's harpsichord toccatas. Names don't really mean that much where it comes to larger forms tbh.

That's such a broad question and impossible to answer broadly. The answer will change drastically depending on the context.

Hi Kahlia, welcome aboard. And lovely name, by the way. Your question is definitely among the more frequently asked ones, so run a search and have a look for some answers that have cropped up over the years, but since I work in media composition for a living I'll offer you some bullet points of my own too so you know what you're getting into. I wrote this as a blog post some time ago, but I'll include it here for you: Learn your tools. Mas­ter them so they’re never in your way, learn their tricks, per­son­al­it­ies, and best practices. Learn to work fast. Then learn to work faster. Make an excel­lent demo reel show­cas­ing a vari­ety of styles. Make an excel­lent web pres­ence to host that demo reel and inform­a­tion about your­self. Make it easy for people to Google you and find your music. Make it easy to listen to and share. Send out 10 emails per day to young dir­ect­ors whose work you admire on You­Tube, to game design­ers whose work you admire, to folks you’ve read about in art­icles, to people you’ve found on for­ums ded­ic­ated to film mak­ing, gam­ing etc. Ten per day. And don’t stop until you start get­ting answers. For every 50 emails you send, you’ll likely get between 5 – 10 responses, of which 3 will be a polite no, one of which will be a “we’ll keep you on file”, and the other which might be a “maybe, let’s talk about it.” While you’re writ­ing so many emails, learn to write well. Be con­cise, affable, pro­fes­sional, and cour­teous. The bet­ter your emails, the more responses you’ll get. Respect your work; just because you’re new doesn’t mean you’re not worth money. You may not be worth $500/minute yet, but you sure are worth some­thing. Find a num­ber and try to get paid for your work, even if only an hon­or­arium. If you teach people that you think your work is worth noth­ing, then don’t be sur­prised when they keep com­ing back expect­ing you to work for free even when they get big­ger budgets. Watch a lot of films, study a lot of film scores, and learn about the pro­cess of mak­ing films. Not your part, theirs. Find out about cine­ma­to­graphy, learn to recog­nize good edit­ing, refine your eye for good dir­ec­tion and good writ­ing. If you can hold a con­ver­sa­tion on their pas­sion with them, you’re already a more attract­ive pro­spect than the ignor­ant com­poser too caught up in his work to real­ize that other people exist and con­trib­ute to a film. Learn to under­stand the con­text within which you’ll be work­ing, in other words. Learn about audio from other per­spect­ives: learn the phys­ics, learn the psy­cho­logy of musical influ­ence, learn the biases of cul­tural iden­tity. Learn about audio formats, about com­pres­sion, about deliv­ery formats, and about the pro­cess of imple­ment­ing music in a project. Learn to man­age your time well. Fig­ure out how many pro­jects you can have on the go at once (if it’s just one then you’re in the wrong line of work), fig­ure out how many minutes of music you can con­sist­ently write per day in vari­ous styles (again, if it’s just one then you’re not going to be par­tic­u­larly com­pet­it­ive), and be dili­gent about stick­ing within the zone of com­fort that allows you to max­im­ize the qual­ity of your work on each pro­ject. But don’t stag­nate: let that com­fort zone expand as you get more experienced. Now, to your education question I give a more direct answer: be careful. A certain sense of self-awareness is necessary to make a good decision here. While others have differing opinions, in my experience of working in the industry, I've never once been asked about my education nor had it brought up as a point of interest for any of my employers. Not a single time. And my degree is not in music, by the way. That doesn't mean you shouldn't spend those three years studying music, but it does mean that if you are a very capable independent learner then you could possibly spend the time better by studying something that will give you more generally applicable skills, or spend it seeking and finding work experience in the industry while polishing your musical chops independently. How you decide to proceed is your call, but be aware that you — like the rest of us — are always behind the game. There's always someone faster, better, more talented, cheaper, etc. so in order to be competitive you really do need to jump into the game as early as you possibly can and work hard. Unless those 3 years are very tangibly benefiting the goal of making you more directly competitive (no one cares if you can analyze harmony in a piece) then you're wasting your time and squandering what potential for success you have. Which is very little, by the way. It's a cut-throat and unsupportive environment where you really do have to be brilliant to make your way; at music, at business, at working with technology, at networking especially... The usual caveats apply here: I'm not trying to discourage you at all, I'm simply saving you some of the coddling bullshit that you may have heard from others; anyone who's told you that writing for film is easier than "real" concert music, anyone who's told you that talent and musical skills are all that matter, etc. My recommendation to you is to find a local course that will welcome you into the very complex world of digital music production (working in a DAW, using sample libraries, synthesizers, etc.) and going from there — the technology side, in other words. THAT is the kind of stuff that can be very daunting to learn without some guidance. If there's nothing local, look into reputable online courses (Berklee, etc.) which offer quality instruction for a good price on your own time, which leaves you open to pursue work in the meantime. Do your best to find yourself an opportunity to actually score a film. It's the fastest way to find out if it's what you expect and really want to do.